The use of an instant fingernail coating product whereby nail polish is applied to a fingernail by adhesively securing to it in a dry or in a semi-dried form of nail polish has become a popular method of providing a manicure. Such products, also known as “nail appliqués”, allow a user to rapidly decorate finger or toe nails with colors, designs or images, or with metallic sheens. For example, U.S. application Ser. No. 11/126,862, filed May 11, 2005 discloses the product and method of manufacturing semi-dry nail appliqués. Because of its semi-dried state, a nail appliqué easily stretches, conforms and adheres to a nail after which it completely cures and dries.
Additionally, the use of ultraviolet (UV) radiation on a nail decoration is known in the art as a form of curing nail gels. For example, the U.S. Publication 2012/0103354 (i.e. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/859,563 filed on Apr. 9, 2013) discusses many desirable features of the UV gel: beautiful, smooth, glassy, and durable finish. However, due to its cross-linking properties, once applied on a nail, the removal of a UV gel is time-consuming and difficult. A conventional technique to remove a UV gel involves the following steps: buffing the surface of the nails, soaking the nails in harsh solvents such as a high concentration of acetone for a period of time, or alternatively wrapping aluminum foils around the nails with acetone soaked cotton balls, and then scrapping off the UV gel.
Due to a cured UV gels hard and ridged physical properties, the use of UV gel in a semi-dry nail appliqué is known to be very difficult in practice. This is because the UV gel rigid cured state does not fit well with the appliqués which require conformity to nails, flexibility and stretch-ability.
These previous dry (e.g. artificial nails) or semi-dry nail coating products are not well adapted to providing two or more different looks, decorations or shades sequentially over time. For example, a user may wish to decorate a nail with a particular design or shade and later decorate the nail with a different color, design or any combination thereof, without having to completely replace the nail appliqué. This is especially the case when the appliqué comprises a UV layer that is difficult to remove, and requires exposing the nail to harsh chemicals.
It would be desirable to fashion a nail appliqué that provides a novel way the users may easily decorate their nails with two or more different decoration comprising colors, designs, images and/or patterns. This problem is solved by the current invention, which is directed to a nail appliqué comprising at least one layer of a novel, flexible UV radiation-curable gel that protects an underlying layer of a first enamel color/design when the user removes an upper layer of a second enamel color/design.